Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there certainly didn't seem to be anyone in Somerset Saturday who thought the war in Iraq was not worth the fight or that U.S. troops didn't deserve all the support Americans at home could muster.
One old fellow, a World War II veteran still able to fit into his vintage "Eisenhower jacket," said the men and women struggling to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein were "worthy of our support."
Arthur Parsons, 87, a former Army signal corpsman who helped string the telegraph wire from Reims, France, that alerted the world to the surrender of Nazi Germany there 58 years ago, said today's soldiers, sailors and Marines "are tremendous fighters" and "in the highest tradition" of the U.S. military.
Ruby Basinger just wants the father of her 3-year-old son to come home safe. U.S. Army paratrooper Richard Landis is somewhere in Iraq, she said, and the weeks since the shooting started have been agonizing. "It's hard for me to talk about it," she said.
Parsons and Basinger were in the crowd that gathered in front of the Somerset County Courthouse yesterday for a rally in support of U.S. troops. Organizers of the event promised rallies as long as the war lasts.
Sponsored by the veterans organizations in Somerset, the rally was punctuated by prayers, the singing of the national anthem, and the honking of horns from the traffic on nearby streets. Small American flags along with black-with-white-trim POW-MIA flags were passed out and waved.
A high wind bent the courthouse shrubbery, but it didn't seem to chill anyone's enthusiasm. County Commissioner Pamela Tokar-Ickes told the crowd that the fanfare in support of the troops typified the spirit of the people of Somerset County.
The size of the crowd was in dispute. One official said 2,000. Another said between 1,200 and 1,500. A third man estimated 700.
"The boys need all the support they can get," said Doug Summers, of Somerset, who joked about the red-white-and-blue striped hard hat he was wearing. "I'm a truck driver, I should wear a hard hat, right?" he laughed.
Peggy Summers, his wife, said the United States was doing the right thing in trying to rid Iraq of Saddam.
Ousting the Iraqi dictator from power was also on the mind of Bonnie Miller, of Somerset. "We are very much in support of our troops and our president," she said.
She called Saddam "an evil man" whose overthrow would mean freedom for the Iraqi people.
Miller accompanied her daughter, April Miller, to the rally. April is engaged to marry a soldier, Adam Stern, who spent several months in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and is now stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y., awaiting orders for another deployment.
Concerning the war, April Miller said, "I think we need to do what needs to be done." She indicated she also would support military action against the other members of President Bush's "axis of evil" -- Iran and North Korea.
Bonnie Miller urged caution. Diplomacy first, she said, but further combat may be necessary. She despaired of the lack of resolve by the United Nations.
The consensus seemed to be that coalition forces would discover the whereabouts of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. There also seemed to be general agreement that it didn't matter whether they found such weapons or not. It was said that Saddam was such a bad character and his rule was so tyrannical that the United States was justified in using force to bring about his downfall.
Sally Maranowski, of Somerset, spoke with feeling not about that issue, but about her son, U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Timothy Jon Bence, whose life is now on the line in Iraq. Yesterday was Sgt. Bence's 16th wedding anniversary, and the family learned he placed a cell phone call to his wife, Lori, and the couple's four children at Fort Hood, Texas, to wish her a happy anniversary.
"It's been really tough," said Maranowski, as she reached over to hug her son's mother-in-law, Barbara Kennick, of Somerset.
Fred Schmidt, of the rally organizing committee, said 200 names of family members of military personnel were collected yesterday. The group hopes to form a military families support group. An informal meeting for that purpose will held Monday, April 14, at 7 p.m. at VFW Post 554, Somerset.
